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I bit back a goofy smile. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He closed the space between us, not enough to make me step back. He smiled when I held my ground. “I’m glad you came. It’ll be fun. People get really into this class.”
“I don’t have to hit an actual person, do I?”
He snorted. “How else are you going to learn how to fight off an attacker, Margo?”
Nathan approached us. “Hi, Margo. Nice of you to join us. Have you ever taken a class like this before?”
I shook my head slowly. “I’m more of a pacifist.”
He grinned and exchanged an amused glance with Dorian. “I’ll pair you up with Dorian tonight then. He’s a bit of a pacifist, too.” His look turned serious. “Make sure she warms up properly—no slacking off, we don’t need anyone getting injured on their first day. Then get started on the basics from lessons one and two. Just the movements for now. As soon as I get everybody else set up, I’ll be back to observe.”
When he left, I looked at Dorian, wrinkling my nose in disgust. “There arelessons?”
“What on earth did you think went on here?” he asked, leading me to a quiet corner of the room. There was an empty mat on the floor and buffers around the walls. I really hoped it wasn’t going to be like P.E. at school. I was pretty sure Nathan Evans would know if I faked an injury to avoid exercise.
I pushed the edge of the mat with my toe. “I kinda thought it’d be people sitting down, drinking coffee, learning about avoiding danger. That kind of thing.”
“I can see why people do that, but Nathan runs a physical class.” He plonked himself on the mat and gestured for me to follow. He demonstrated some stretches for me to copy. “Nathan wants to give everyone the means to protect themselves if needed. The stuff about avoiding danger is sort of like… making you feel safer because you’ve taken measures to make sure the bad guy goes for somebody more vulnerable.”
“I don’t want anybody else to get hurt instead of me,” I said hurriedly.
“But that’s the best case scenario. You minimise the danger to you, but what if that just puts the attacker’s focus on somebody else? And what happens whenyouhappen to be the most vulnerable person around?”
“What’s the worst case scenario?” I asked. “Because even best case sounds pretty awful right now.”
He held up his hands. “It’s not meant to be a guilt trip. Just a different point of view. The world isn’t full of bad people, but they still exist. If somebody really wants to hurt you, nothing will stop them. People get hurt even when everything is in their favour. If it comes to that, you don’t want to feel helpless. You want to be able to do everything in your power to fight back.”
I leaned back. “I suppose I didn’t think of it that way before.”
He grinned. “That’s because you don’t live with Perdita Rivers.”
“It must be weird to live with a teacher.”
“Not really.” He noticed my efforts had become pathetically half-hearted and frowned. “We should get a move on before Nathan shows up.”
“I thought he was a dog trainer,” I said.
“This is voluntary,” he said. “Like the firefighting.”
“He’s a fireman?” I glanced over at the man. “How does he even have time to eat?”
He grinned. “We always find time to eat.” He hauled me to my feet. We finished the warm-up then started on simple movements, reactions to ways I could be pinned. I had been mildly horrified by the idea of physical fighting, but it wasn’t like that at all.
By the time Nathan returned, I had worked up a sweat and was even enjoying myself. Nathan directed us then, using Dorian to show me more. They wrestled, and a couple of times, I winced at the impact as one or the other was thrown against the buffers, but neither seemed to mind. They were a lot gentler with me, but still firm enough that I had to work hard to free myself using their instructions.
“Well?” Nathan said at the end of the class. “Are you going to come back or have we scared you off?”
“How much is it?” I asked.
“Oh, no, it’s a free class,” he said. “We have a jar for donations to an animal rescue we work with for anyone who feels like giving something small, but you don’t have to pay for this class. Everybody should be able to defend themselves.Everybodydeserves to feel safe.”
He was oddly passionate about the whole thing. “Well, thanks,” I said. “I should go say hi to Ms. Rivers and thank her for inviting me.”
I found my teacher standing next to a tall woman with faded teal hair scraped back into a scarily tight bun. She was even taller than me, which made a nice change.
“I just wanted to say thanks, Ms. Rivers. I enjoyed the class.”
